Oh no, the 16 GB RAM and mSATA + hdd option of the x230 had to make room for this. I'm a little sad that all laptops are getting thinner and thinner in the small formfactor space while someone that needs lots of RAM needs to jump to larger models...Reply

Don't get me started on apples "dock" lol but I expect because EVERYONE is getting a mac that they'll just have to create (or a third party will) a dock that is awesome. It's getting so bad that I have to translate mac scripts to windows daily lol. I love the x230..change is hard lolReply

You didn't mention the most important part of the T440s: the AHVA (IPS-like) matte LCD. Unfortunately it's 16:9 and not 16:10. There's a 23 Wh sealed battery and a swappable 23 Wh battery by default. The latter can be replaced with a thicker one with double the capacity.

Cons:The biggest flaw for me is that the M.2 slot (which replaces mSATA/mPCIe) only fits 42 mm drives, so it's currently not possible to have a decent-size SSD+HDD. Some models will come with a 24 GB SSD cache.Lenovo got rid of the dedicated mute, volume, page forward, and page back keys.4 GB RAM is soldered, so max is 12 GB.The way the touchpad clicks (same as T431s) and the poorly designed TrackPoint buttons are likely to put off some buyers.Status lights for HDD, charge, WiFi, and bluetooth are gone, as is the ThinkLight (but keyboard is backlit.)The speakers are on the bottom, but apparently produce good sound if the laptop is on a desk. Not compatible with the OneLink Dock.The Touch models are significantly (~200g) heavier, and MAY have glossy Gorilla Glass.No UltraBay, no ExpressCard slot.

Student models are already on sale in Germany (around EUR 1000 with i5s) and Hong Kong (~HK$8000 with i7s if I remember right.)Reply

The pictures say X240s but the press release and spec sheets say nothing of the X240s and only mention the X240. So as to what the differences are, I can't say, but I'd guess the specs are for the X240 and that the X240s is largely the same.Reply

Nothing that I've heard; probably waiting for new GPUs before the refresh? Or maybe not. Usually the mobile workstations lag behind new technology changes by around six months, so I'd guess December/January for most of the big names (Dell, Lenovo, HP) to update to Haswell, give or take.Reply

Uhm, I'm here in Berlin for the IFA with danish channel "Living Smart TV" and the time is 7.30am..... the IFA is not open til later today so it's somewhat surprising to see products already HAVING been launched when the show is not even open :)Reply

ThinkPads have an excellent keyboard, these don'tThinkPads have excellent built quality, these don'tThinkPads are serviceable, these aren' ThinkPads neglects trackpad because everyone knows the trackpoint is superior, these don'tThinkPads have excellent keyboard shortcuts, these don't

Build quality should still be good, Lenovo has been futzing with their ThinkPad keyboards for a while now, and many people actually think TrackPoint is inferior and should die (like me). A 2x larger touchpad with good gesture support is much better for everything I do at least. And what "excellent keyboard shortcuts" are missing -- for that matter, what's "excellent" about the pretty much standard keyboard shortcuts on prior ThinkPads?Reply

Heresy! I can't imagine buying a laptop without TrackPoint. That means, unfortunately, that I'm locked into Thinkpad laptops.

I've heard, for at first, touchpad is easier so most opt for that and get used to it. If you put some work into it, trackpoints are superior. However, if you get to a mastery level, I've heard that it goes back to touchpads.

Having used TrackPoint for so long, retraining to touchpad sounds annoying in the extreme. Besides, being able to mouse while still having hands on the keyboard, and scrolling pages at the flick of a finger, is something I'm loath to give up.Reply

Actually the new keyboard (on the x230) which I thought I woudl HATE is awesome. Really! I notice immediateyl when I'm on a crappy keyboard (any chiclet including macs lol) and this one is actually quite good. Plus while programming I often hit cursor/pgup/pgdn and its just convenient where they are.

X240 costs over $1000 but comes with 1366x768 resolution by default, I wonder how much you need to pay to get 1920x1080? At the same time Nexus 7 with the same resolution is sold at $229, what's so difficult of putting this resolution to <$1000 laptops? Full HD should be the default resolution for cheap laptops while expensive laptops should move to 2560x1440 or better.

Also the connectivity is silly, X240 lacks DP but has VGA!? How about ditching ancient VGA and putting both HDMI and DP so you can use two external screens at the same time digitally and need less adapters?

What I want from the laptop is:- small (<=13")- decent screen (at least 1920x1080)- removable battery- two DIMM slots- at least 3xUSB and Ethernet- affordable (way less than $1000)

Such laptops existed in the past, almost three years ago I bought Lenovo Edge 11 with these specs (except the display resolution) for less than $600. Now it's impossible to find similar, but with a better display even if you pay double. I would expect that the technology has advanced enough for full HD displays be affordable enough for this. Phone, tablet, and monitor (27" 2560x1440 monitors for $300) market point to this way, but laptops still have worse resolution than almost 10 years ago.Reply

10 years is pushing it -- 10 years ago good laptops generally had 1400x1050 or 1280x1024 LCDs, and they had relatively poor contrast with maximum brightness levels of 150 nits or so. LEDs improved brightness but often resulted in worse colors, and the race to the bottom really hurt contrast, quality, and uptake of IPS and similar solutions. That's starting to change, but it hasn't happened 100% yet.

For the rest: Windows still has lousy dpi scaling (8.1 is supposed to improve this, but only for Win8 Apps, not legacy stuff AFAICT), and if you have too small a dot pitch you end up with text that's hard to read and the older generation -- the people most likely to use a ThinkPad -- get angry. On a 12.5" screen, I can see some people wanting 1366x768, others wanting 1600x900, and still others pushing for 1920x1080, and the X240 at least offers two of those.

Comparing a 12.5" screen to 7" displays is apples and oranges, and the OS makes 1080p on a 7" display usable with Android where it wouldn't be with Windows. Likewise, a 2560x1440 grade B panel sold for $350 is totally different from a laptop display. Realistically, I think the 1080p 13" IPS displays probably cost around $125-$150 right now, so it's not that bad, but manufacturers are still slow to put them into laptops. They hate increasing BoM and it comes back to bite them in the butt.

VGA is still around because tons of businesses have projectors and other equipment that still "works fine" and only supports VGA input, so almost all business laptops continue to include VGA. When will VGA truly die and go away? Probably 10 years. :-\

For your wish list:13" or smaller laptops are plentiful, so that's not a problem.Decent screens are available (X240, some Sony, various other Ultrabooks) as well.Removable batteries add to the size and girth of a laptop and so most Ultrabooks avoid themTwo SO-DIMM slots makes a thicker laptop, so Ultrabooks rarely have more than one and many solder the RAM.3 x USB is possible, but on the cramped confines of 13" and smaller it is difficult to do while getting everything else in place (mostly just an engineering problem, so doing it would increase costs).Ethernet has a required thickness and again, a lot of Ultrabooks skip it just to be thinner.Affordable? Well, with all the above, you're basically going the opposite direction.

Your Edge 11 has a lousy quality display, no SSD, and an old CULV processor that's less than half the performance of modern budget laptops. Prices on CPUs haven't really come down; the CPUs are just faster, so budget laptops are still $600 -- and don't have the various extras you're after. Finding a replacement for your Edge 11 that's a good upgrade will probably mean spending $600 again, and you'd end up with something that is similar in overall quality and doesn't have an SSD.

Could someone do all of the above for $1000? Almost certainly. But then they'd have to either sell at a very tiny profit (like less than 5%) and risk losing money, and when most people still prefer $500 to $600 laptops it's a risk. So they make the prices higher to reduce the total risk, which in turn reduces the market interest. Heh. But an MBA11 has an estimated BoM of $700 and it still misses on the quality display, so add another $100, and then add another $100 for the engineering resources required to get the rest of your list. Apple is the most likely company to build what you're after, and I think they'd charge $1500+.Reply

ThinkPads have never been known to have consumer GPU options. Some have workstation graphics options, but they were mediocre at best for gaming. I don't think these are the laptops you are looking for.Reply

I'm obligated to post my thoughts on any article on new ThinkPads. All I want are:

* The old keyboard layout. I'm fine if you want to switch to chiclet keys, I just need to delete/home/end/pgup/pgdn keys in the corner, so I can hit them consistently without looking at my keyboard.* Please release a nice display (preferably IPS) with enough vertical space. 16:10 < 4:3 < 3:2. We use these to work, I can't fit a full page of text with a short display. I don't need to watch movies on this.* Thin bezels around screen, narrower laptops. The T420s I'm typing on has an extra inch of unneeded horizontal size.* Trackpoint buttons. I can't believe I'm having to spell this out now. Being able to use it without looking at it leads to efficiency. Though I haven't tried the new TrackPoint buttons, since they are not raised buttons, I'm pretty sure ergonomics will suffer.

That's it. If you need to make changes to keep up with the times, so be it. These are what I think constitutes the strengths of the ThinkPad design. If these changes make the laptop more expensive, that's fine. This is supposed to be an enterprise product made for work.Reply

Does anyone know whether the Carbon X-1 will be refreshed with Haswell ? No mention of the Carbon X-1 with the new X line roll-out so wondering if it will be phased out. It has been a great machine for me except the battery life, which I had hoped would be resolved with Haswell.Reply

Long time ago I used IBM T60 that was released in 2006 (or earlier) and had 1600x1200 resolution, so that's 7-8 years :)

About the DPI scaling, it works good enough for me in Windows 7, so I don't see a big issue here.

If 13" 1920x1080 panel costs $120-$150 (it's probably less since 32" 1920x1080 panels costs below $100), then there is no reason why they can't be used it in $600 laptops.

About the connections, I don't care about ultimate thinness, and my current 11.6" laptop has three USBs ports, two DIMM slots and ethernet port, so this definitely can be done in a small laptop.

"Your Edge 11 has a lousy quality display, no SSD, and an old CULV processor that's less than half the performance of modern budget laptops."

I have 17W i3. While it's significantly slower than Haswell, it's not less than half performance compared to Haswell 17W i3s. And most of modern budget laptops are still based on Ivy Bridge. I doubt that the display is much lousier than for example last years >$1000 X230 (same 1366x768 resolution).

I actually don't care much about SSDs in default configurations since they are often too small or slow. I rather buy a suitable $100-$150 SSD myself. My dream laptop would have large enough (80mm?) M.2 slot for SSD and a space for 2.5" HDD. This way one could have both the speed of SSD and a large storage capacity.

I agree that prices for the CPUs in the same class have not decreased, but prices for other components, especially display have decreased a lot. That's why I don't understand why it's so difficult to make $600 laptop, that has equivalent components to 3-year old $600 laptop (naturally with a modern processor, etc.) and a better (higher resolution) display!? I'm not asking for i7 or 512GB SSD, or some other exotic components.Reply